


Broken Blossoms, or, Looking for Love

by Capucine



Category: Broken Blossoms, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, Child Abuse, Drama, Gen, Religious Content, Silent Era, early 20th century
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4272345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Macau is a young, enthusiastic Catholic who sets out from his home in the hopes of converting the Protestant English. He has fire and a lot of naivete.</p>
<p>However, he is quickly embittered by the place once he gets there.</p>
<p>Wy is the young daughter of the boxer, Australia. He didn't want her, and he never wanted her. He frequently abuses her, until one day she flees for her life.</p>
<p>Macau is awakened from his bitterness when he finds Wy collapsed outside his shop. A tentative, loving friendship blossoms. But what will become of the pair of them, a dangerous match in early 1900s England?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry the beginning is so short. I just thought it would be fun to do a crossover of the 1919 film. :) Also, originally, in the movie, the Chinese man is both completely Chinese and a Buddhist missionary; I changed it a bit to fit Macau.

_Two years prior to the story_

Wang Chen-Amancio was the child of a Portuguese man and a Chinese woman. This made him Macanese, a child of the tiny colony of Macao. Still, he mostly looked Chinese, and despite knowing more than just the Cantonese language, was often mistaken for an illiterate coolie.

He preferred to go by Chen more than Amancio. 

Today, he looked into his father's face, saying in Portuguese, “Father, you have always provided for me and shown me love. I must go out into the world, however, and find my place. It's not here; I must take the love you and mother have shown me, and pass it on.”

Reinaldo, his father, raised an eyebrow. “And why not here? Where do you intend to go?”

Chen smiled, saying, “England. I hope to convince them of our God, the one that smiles on Chinese and Portuguese alike. I want to turn them back from their Protestantism, and to Catholicism once again.”

Letting out a sigh, Reinaldo said, “That's a big thing to try, Amancio. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course. I can dream of no greater purpose,” Chen said earnestly. And there was no greater purpose in his life than to be a missionary, than to bring the word of God to the English who had turned away ages ago.

His father had consented, and helped him pack what he would need.

He couldn't contain his excitement, prolifically kissing his mother and father goodbye as he got on the boat and headed for Limehouse, England.

He knew he would make a difference in the world. He knew his calling.

Or so he thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life in Limehouse, England, for a mixed-blood missionary and a poor waif.

Chen had discovered a lot in the two years he'd been in England, in the poor area of Limehouse. 

Firstly, the world did not give a shit about you or your religion. Not a single person in this neighborhood even went to the Protestant churches, much less wanted to hear about Catholicism. They used the Lord's name as a curse, much like the sailors he had seen little of in Macao, and with as little knowledge of who they were cursing as cursing the King or Queen.

Secondly, even his own people, the Chinese, did not give a shit about him. They had coldly allowed his mixed blood into their ranks, allowing a thin place for his shop and nothing more. Thanks to his father's money, he'd been able to scrape together a shop that used cheap imports from his home, Macao, and he lived upstairs. He decorated the room with things that reflected his culture, and sometimes sat among it, wishing he could head home and hold his head high.

Thirdly—and this was the hardest lesson of all to grasp—the English did not give a shit about him. In fact, they treated him as an oddity, a strange thing to gape at at best and a thing to be ignored or glared at at worst. The women crossed to the other side of the street, and the men spat at his feet.

He sometimes wondered if he should have adopted their dress, but it felt like abandoning his home to do so.

Today, he had to deal with the prying eyes of the neighbor of his, the sleepy-eyed Yong, a native of Fujian who had moved there long before him. He always watched, always had a look on his face like he might turn Chen in for buying opium.

Because yes, in these woeful and disheartening times, Chen had turned to the drug. He found the peace in the smoke much easier to handle than the real world, which was dank and dark and hopeless. No one was going to turn to God because of him. No one's life would be changed for the better.

“Wang Chen,” Yong greeted, his eyes always looking like they would droop shut and he'd fall asleep right there. He looked Chen up and down, and said with a sneer, “Out to evangelize?”

Chen gave a sour look. “I'm just fixing my sign. It needs repainted, as you can see.”

Yong nodded. “Of course. Will you teach me about Jesus while you're at it?” He broke into cackles. 

It was no secret in the Chinese community that Chen was a laughingstock. A Chinese mutt, who'd come here to evangelize the _English_? How laughable it seemed even to him now. Not that he would laugh himself, there were enough people to do it.

Chen glared. “I'm busy. Go away.”

Yong laughed. “I'll have to catch you when you're on your opium. Maybe you'll save my soul from the demons!”

Chen just stared at his sign hard, repainting the English words, and then the Chinese characters beneath. He served both alike, though mostly Chinese. He carried a lot of things, from gum to paper fans to even dolls. The dolls were rarely purchased, expensive in this neighborhood, but he still held onto them.

Someone might buy it sometime. It wasn't like dolls had a shelf-life.

Fortunately, Yong decided to head along, laughing to himself anyway and making more jokes.

Chen just focused on his sign. He couldn't wait to have his opium that evening, where he would forget about gritty Limehouse and everything horrible about living here. But he could hold himself back until then. He still had a business to run, after all.

He ducked inside the shop after hanging up the sign, narrowly missing the little girl going by.

* * *

Her name was Mary, named for her dead mother. She had curled brown hair that fell around her shoulders without a thing to hold it back, and she had her father's unfortunate thick eyebrows.

Mary stared in the window, seeing the dolls. She didn't often leave the house, but when she did, she liked to look at pretty things, even if she would never have them.

Sometimes, she fantasized the doll was in her hands, and she could feel whatever dolls felt like. She imagined a bit heavy, maybe solid to the touch, soft clothes and hair. She could see this window had both English-looking dolls and Chinese dolls, both very different. She didn't truly recognize the clothes on the English dolls, far too fancy, she imagined, for anyone around here to wear.

Whoever owned this shop was rich beyond belief.

She pulled her raggedy shawl, a poor excuse for a coat, around her shoulders. Her breath collected on the window, and for a moment, she put her fingers on it, before quickly drawing them away so she wouldn't get in trouble for fingerprints.

Mary was a simple girl. She did not know how to read, she did not know how to write, and she did not know the world beyond Limehouse. She knew very little beyond the shack she and her father, the boxer Jack, lived in, but in these moments, she looked at the Chinese dolls and pretended she knew where it was. She pretended she understood their clothes and their hair, and made little sounds she thought sounded like the Chinese she heard about, imagining she could speak the language and go there.

But her father would miss her soon, and that meant getting smacked around. She did everything she could to avoid that, so she patted her hands on her raggedy skirt, as if to wipe herself clean of the dream, and headed home to cook dinner and serve up the bottle.

Then she would hide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opium thing is not as a 'all Chinese did this' sort of thing. It's part of the original film, and I felt it was a good plot point and a good way to show how he's fallen. Also, usually I prefer Sandy for Wy, but Mary felt more fitting for the time period and place.


End file.
